


not today

by YOONSONGHEE



Series: brighter than a blue sky [10]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Genderfluid Character, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, Nonbinary Character, Protective Xu Ming Hao | The8, Protective Yoon Jeonghan, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28374435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YOONSONGHEE/pseuds/YOONSONGHEE
Summary: After a long tiring day, Jisoo reaches his breaking point in the best way possible.
Relationships: Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: brighter than a blue sky [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890814
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	not today

Hong Jisoo was close to their breaking point yet the day wasn’t over yet.

When they were working in the library, all of a sudden, one of their classmates came up to them and started misgendering them even though everyone in all their classes knew Jisoo’s pronouns. And if their classmates didn’t, that’s what the huge badge on their clothes was for. At first, Jisoo thought they could handle the misuse of pronouns by reminding their classmate of the proper pronouns to use but sadly the other boy seemed too thick to get it through his skull. To make matters worse, he even sat at Jisoo’s table even though they didn’t want company. 

He sat there for almost half an hour, and when he finally decided to leave, he did so in the worst way possible.

“Bye dude, it was chill sitting with you.”

“Um actually,” Jisoo started trying to keep their emotions under control, “I don’t like masculine terms. Or any gendered terms at all.”

“But I heard your boyfriend literally refer to you as his ‘boyfriend’ so,” the classmate made a 50/50 motion with his hand, “you seem kinda confused.”

“I’m not confused,” Jisoo managed through gritted teeth, “I let him use those terms cos he’s my boyfriend as you put it so he’s allowed to.”

“It seems kind of confusing to me,” in the end, the boy just shrugged and waved at Jisoo as he began to leave, “maybe if your whole identity wasn’t so complicated, you might have more friends!”

Watching the boy leave their table and walk out of the library, Jisoo vaguely felt their pencil snapping in their hands as they took a deep breath before packing away. After that dreadful half an hour, they didn’t even have the will to get any studying done.

•••

For some reason that one encounter stuck with Jisoo for the rest of the day, even when they were dragging their feet to meet Jeonghan in the cafe, hoping the two of them could just sit in silence while they tried to organise the thoughts running amok in their brain. However, when they walked through the door of the cafe, Jeonghan was sitting with Minghao and Mingyu. As soon as the bell over the entrance chimed, all three of them turned to see Jisoo and waved them over.

Well, Jisoo thought to themself, so much for bailing on them.

When Jisoo sat down in the booth, they gave a smile in greeting to Minghao and tried to greet Mingyu, but the younger had their head down. Shrugging, they just turned to Jeonghan who kissed them in welcome, eliciting exaggerated gagging from Minghao.

“Hey babe,” Jeonghan brushed back Jisoo’s bangs, “how has school been for you today?”

“Kind of feel like dropping dead,” Jisoo teased as they put their head to rest on Jeonghan’s shoulder.

“Jisoo-sunbae please don’t do that,” Minghao pleaded, clasping his hands together, “if you do then Jeonghan hyung will become a widow and we would have to deal his annoying arse.”

“Hey!” Jeonghan yelled indignantly, “you should be lucky to deal with this amazing ass.”

“What ass? You have the flattest one I’ve seen yet!”

“Like you’re doing any better Minghao, your ass is flat enough for me to use a chopping board.”

“Oh? Does this mean you can finally cook now hyung?”

“You little bitch,” Jeonghan growled out playfully causing Jisoo to laugh at the two’s antics. 

However, their attention soon went back to Mingyu who hadn’t spoken since they arrived. Jisoo looked Mingyu up and down for any indication of their gender but could find none.

“Hey Gyu,” Jisoo asked with a worried look, “what are your pronouns today? I haven’t seen you earlier and also I haven’t seen any gender tags on you.”

“I have no pronouns today,” Mingyu said in a monotonous, emotionless tone, far from their usual cheerful nature, “just don’t address me at all.”

“Her pronouns right now are she/her,” Minghao butted in, “she took off her badge because of some dickhead in her class earlier.”

“What?” Jeonghan suddenly sat up straight with a threatening look on his face, “tell me who it is and I will have their bones broken straight away.”

“It’s okay oppa, it was just one comment,” Mingyu insisted, “the only reason it hit me so hard is that I was already feeling down and insecure.”

“Who cares, I’ll still go and fight them right now!”

“Leave her alone Hannie,” Jisoo said just as their drinks came to their table and took their drink and lifted it to Mingyu, “cheers to being misgendered and disrespected in general.” the elder deadpanned.

With a sad smile, Mingyu lifted her drink and tapped it against Jisoo’s before they both started drinking. Jeonghan looked at Jisoo with wide eyes before nudging his boyfriend.

“Do I have to beat up another person today?”

“You weren’t beating up anyone in the first place Hannie,” Jisoo rolled their eyes taking another sip of their drink, “he’s just some idiot who I could care less about. I’m less hurt about him misgendering me and more annoyed that he hasn’t gotten it through his thick skull yet.”

“Sounds like this has been going on for a while sunbae,” Minghao said worriedly.

“Don’t worry, this is the first time it happened but the idiot kept talking to me for about half an hour and implied that my gender was too complicated.”

“How?” Jeonghan questioned as he rubbed Jisoo’s arm in silent comfort, “even Minghao understands and he’s dumb.”

“Hey! No, I’m not.”

“Maybe not in the way people usually do, but it did take you two years to realise Mingyu liked you.”

“A long two years,” Mingyu said, shuddering slightly as she thought back.

“Anyways, sunbae, you were saying?”

“The dickhead said that he heard Jeonghan call me his boyfriend so he thought it was okay to use masculine terms on me.”

“That’s basically what happened to me today,” Mingyu commented, still sipping on her drink.

“I thought it was a single comment?” Minghao asked, turning to his girlfriend, “at least that’s what you told me.”

“It was a single comment,” Mingus muttered but under the scrutinising gazes of the other three, she sighed and continued, “a single comment. Every hour. For the last month.”

“Oh my God, Mingyu,” Jeonghan sighed, “why didn’t you say anything?”

“It was nothing! And also it was awkward because he’s friends with Jisoo sunbae and I didn’t want to-“

“He's not friends with me,” Jisoo said suddenly with a confused look on their face, “I do not have any friends that take the same classes as you Mingyu-ah.”

“But he said-“

The bell over the cafe door rang again, but this time Jisoo paid attention since their classmate that disturbed them in the library was there. They glared at him before turning back to Mingyu only to see her try to hide against Minghao. Looking between their classmate and the scared girl, Jisoo quickly made the connection.

“Is that him?” Jisoo asked, feeling anger spike within him.

“Yes,” Mingyu admitted but backtracked when she saw Jeonghan begin to stand up, “wait, oppa, don’t do anything!”

“Don’t worry Mingyu, Hannie,” Jisoo got up from their seat with a sigh, “I’ll go talk to him for you.”

As Jisoo walked over to him, their classmate made eye contact and waved as though they were friends. 

“Hey, Jisoo! Fancy seeing you here!”

“Hey, um, could you remind me of your name again?”

“Do Kangin.”

“Ah right, I heard that you’re in the same class as one of my friends? I don’t know if you know her?”

“Maybe, what’s her name?”

“Mingyu.”

The smile on Kangin’s immediately disappeared at the mention of Mingyu’s name and his mouth formed a disgusting sneer. Despite being quite a level-headed person, Jisoo felt their hold on their emotions slip as Kangin scoffed and opened his mouth. 

“I’m not surprised that you’re friends with someone like that. He changes gender the same way somebody changes their knickers and it’s fucking weird. Like who the fuck does that guy think he-”

When Jisoo was younger, their mum and dad signed them up for a few mixed martial arts lessons since they preferred to stay inside rather than go out and do sport. They remember groaning whenever it was time to go to their lessons as they weren’t interested in them and would rather stay home. 

Now, however, Jisoo was grateful for the lessons as it taught them how to throw a swift punch to Kangin’s face without hurting their hand. Kangin fell to the ground with the force of the punch and clutched his face in pain screaming. Silence descended on the small cafe as everyone took in the scene before them in shock. Suddenly feeling very self-conscious, Jisoo grabbed their stuff from their table without making eye contact with their friends and ran out the door.

•••

Jisoo didn’t make it that far before Jeonghan caught up with them, grabbing their arm before they could run any further.  
“Hey, don’t worry, I’m not here to confront you or anything,” Jeonghan said with understanding eyes, “if it was me in your place I would’ve continued going after the first punch.”

“I don’t even know what came over me in the first place,” Jisoo said, pressing their palms over their eyes, “I don’t usually lash out like that but hearing him talk about Mingyu like that just pissed me off.”

“Don’t stress about it,” Jeonghan said, holding Jisoo’s face in his hands, “we all have those days where we just need to punch or hit something. You were lucky enough to get to punch a bigot in the face.”

“If you can even call it luck,” Jisoo rested their head on Jeonghan’s shoulder as the elder led them to sit on a bench so they weren’t standing anymore, “Mingyu didn’t even want this, she’s going to be so upset with me.”

“No, she won’t,” Jeonghan assured, rubbing Jisoo’s arm, “I love Mingyu, but she’s too soft sometimes. Not in a bad way, but I just wish she would speak out more and stand up for herself when stuff like this happens.”

Jisoo hummed, staring at the park across the street from the couple, deep in thought.

“I think that’s why I did it.”

“Mingyu being too soft?”

“Yeah. I know Mingyu and she hates confrontation. No matter what I said to him, I knew if Mingyu didn’t say anything, he would continue his shit. So I just lost it.”

“I would’ve lost it too,” Jeonghan said softly, sighing as he looked at the ground, “who gives a shit if Mingyu is too soft and hates confrontation, we’ll always be here to punch idiots for her.”

“Unless Minghao gets to them first,” Jisoo said with a laugh as Jeonghan laughed with them.

When the laughter between them died down, they both came to a realisation and turned to face each other with wide eyes,

“We left them in there you don’t think-”

“Don’t think what?”

A voice cut off Jeonghan, making the couple look to their side and see Minghao and Mingyu walking towards them. Mingyu went straight to Jisoo and wrapped her arms around the older, a smile on her face.

“Thank you sunbae,” she said with a lilt to her voice “I know I said I didn’t want any violence, but I’m kind of glad you did that.”

“No problem Mingyu,” Jisoo said, linking arms with the younger, “but if something like this happens again, just know you can tell us about it, okay?”

“Of course! Now can we get home? I’m getting tired.”

“Let’s go, I’ve been tired since I left the library,” Jisoo said as they started walking.

“I’ve been tired since I woke up this morning,” Jeonghan said with a playful grin on his face.

“I don’t think this is even worth my insults,” Minghao drawled, working hard to hide the smile on his face. 

“Nobody cared about what you had to say in the first place Minghao.”

As Jeonghan and MInghao bickered, Jisoo and Mingyu watched on in amusement, walking down the street at their own leisurely pace.


End file.
